In July 2009, Natalia Estemirova, a human rights activist from Memorial, was abducted from the Chechen Republic capital Grozny. Her dead body was later found in the neighboring republic of Ingushetia. In August, activists Zarema Sadulaeva and her husband and colleague Alik Dzhabrailov were killed in the Chechen Republic.

The President of Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov says the crimes have been made to shift the blame onto him in order to undermine the system.

“Progress has been made. I am sure that the Prosecutor’s Office, which took up the responsibility, will solve the crime,” Kadyrov told RT, adding, “The most important thing for us to know is who is responsible for the crime. We’ve already been saying that there are no terrorist attacks, crimes or kidnappings in our republic. Once we started saying this, Estemirova was murdered, then Makhmamudova, a representative of an NGO – I can’t recall the name – was killed. Then a Russian family was killed. And all these murders occurred over a short period of time. What am I supposed to say after it? That’s the biggest and the most important crime we must solve, though we also have to investigate the assassination of our first president.”

“So much time has passed, and we still have not solved the case. In a word, we are doing everything possible to solve this crime as soon as possible,” concluded Kadyrov.

Allison Gill, director of Human Rights Watch’s office in Russia, says that the latest announcement is very significant and much needed for human rights activists in the country.

“We have been waiting for 10 years now for Putin to say something along these lines. That being said, I welcome this statement very much,” Gill told RT. “I think it’s something really important, a much needed signal to the local authorities in the North Caucasus about how we should view human rights work.”

The representative of the Ingushetia office of Memorial group, Tamerlan Akiev said that since the notorious murders of human rights activist last summer, things have been rather quite.

“We are a Russian organization working within and seeking to defend Russian law, and we would very much like not to be considered by authorities as enemies or competitors, but as those who want to help,” Akiev added.

Tatiana Lokshina, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Moscow bureau, claims that after Vladimir Putin’s call, human rights activists are going to be very attentive to government activity in Russia.

“I have to say that for the first time in his career, Prime Minister Putin actually made a very encouraging comment about human rights defenders, and he directly called the authorities to assist,” Lokshina told RT. “So in the near future, we are going to look very closely at how the local authorities are following that order by the prime minister.”